Faults:

Nothing has really gone wrong, but it is experiencing some ring blow by. With the automatic (3 speed at that) the engine really screams at highway speeds. This has worn down the rings some. It still runs good, and does not smoke, but the oil vapors are coming out every place they can find.

General Comments:

This car was a one owner with low miles. The 3 speed automatic transmission is a bad choice. The combination of 1.6L and the automatic means the acceleration is old electric car like, without that pesky electric car silence. The handling is OK, and the brakes are good, but the automatic transmission should not be offered with this car. I get about 18.5 mpg in the city, but can only squeeze 24 mpg highway if I keep it under 70 mph, and at that speed the poor little engine is spinning along at 3500 RPM. Take it to 80 mph and the tach reads 3800 and the mileage drops to 19 mpg HIGHWAY. It has not been a bad car, I just prefer something with more get-up-and-go.

Faults:

Clutch suddenly died at 120,000 miles.

Water pump (?) needed replacing at 80,000 miles.

General Comments:

Bought brand new for advertised $5995.

"family car" definitely. Reliable, retained good looks to the end, both inside & out, not a speck of rust despite living in Minnesota and at 200,000 miles. Great gas mileage, but of course not much get up & go; you couldn't run the heater if you were going up a hill without losing momentum. Turning off the heater while climbing a hill became so automatic I still find myself doing it with my current car.

Brought a swingset home in this car once. Seriously. Opened the hatch & loaded, let the swingset extend out the back, away we go. They said it couldn't be done, which only made me more determined.

At 200,000 miles it was refused as a trade at the dealer so was sold for $200 cash through a classified ad. Poor thing.

Faults:

Needed a head gasket at 65,000 miles - a $600 repair after paying $700 for it to get me through a few months.

Demise of car was that rust ate away at the rear right wheel and wheel well. Nothing really to fix, because you can't bolt or weld to rust. Wheel started to splay outward. Driving over bumps eventually would have caused car to literally break in two. Ended up buying a late model Pontiac Grand Prix with low miles.

General Comments:

There are still a lot of old Escorts out there, and if you can find a good one, it may serve you well as basic transportation. Parts are cheap and a rookie can repair them. Look for a car driven a lot on the highway. Mine was driven to and from work in harsh conditions, no highway driving.

Stay away from the 1.6L with the 2 barrel carb. The 1.8L fuel injection which came in "1985-1/2" was 150x better, I'm told.

Faults:

I cooked the engine twice, once needed to replace the head, due to massive coolant leaks (95,96,98).

Bad ignition module (97).

Bad heater core (98).

Clutch is about to go.

General Comments:

Rather old, but only 103K miles and I can't go three months without something significant going wrong. Good thing I got it for free to begin with. I need a new car.